Covid pandemic will end if countries achieve this target, says WHO chief

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus on Tuesday reiterated that only vaccine equity can end the current pandemic and that all the countries need to come together to vaccinate 70% of people in every country by July 2022. 

“Thank you @ONECampaign for joining us in the drive to vaccinate 70% of people in ALL countries by the start of July 2022. If we achieve #VaccinEquity, we end the pandemic,” said Tedros while commenting on a post shared by One Campaign, an advocacy group that fights extreme poverty and disease.

The WHO chief has been urging the world leaders to come together to end vaccine equity as many countries are yet to vaccinate sufficient population due to shortage of jabs, while other are rolling out booster dose in the wake of Omicron surge. 

Tedros recently said that booster dose alone won't end Covid pandemic.  

In his address on December 31, 2021, Tedros had listed out his three resolutions  and vaccine equity was one of them. Two days before this, he said that he was “highly concerned” that the more transmissible Omicron, circulating at the same time as Delta, was leading to “a tsunami of cases.”

He said earlier in the year, during meetings of the world’s biggest economies – the G7 and G20 – the WHO challenged leaders to vaccinate 40% of their populations by the end of 2021 and 70% by the middle of 2022.

“With only a couple of days left in the year, 92 out of 194 Member States missed the target,” Tedros said on December 29. He attributed this to low-income countries receiving a limited supply for most of the year and then subsequent vaccines arriving close to expiry, without key parts, like syringes.

“40% was doable. It’s not only a moral shame, it cost lives and provided the virus with opportunities to circulate unchecked and mutate," he said.

The WHO chief then warned that boosters in rich countries could cause low-income countries to again fall short and called on leaders of wealthy countries and manufacturers to work together to reach the 70% goal by July.

“This is the time to rise above short-term nationalism and protect populations and economies against future variants by ending global vaccine inequity," he said. “We have 185 days to the finish line of achieving 70 per cent by the start of July 2022. And the clock starts now”.

One Campaign too has started drive for 70% vaccination, including in poor countries that are facing crunch. It said while rich countries are hoarding Covid vaccine doses and rolling out boosters, billions of people are still waiting to receive their first shot, and entire countries are largely left unprotected. 

“This unjust and irresponsible behaviour has inevitably come back to bite us,” it writes.

“The new Omicron variant shows how well mutations thrive where the virus is able to spread unhindered. The only way we can escape an endless cycle of variants, boosters, and restrictions is to ensure every one of us has equal access to vaccines, no matter where in the world we live. And time is not on our side,” it adds.